Humanverse

Elyce vs Elyssa

American parents have registered 7,272 Elyssas since 1880, against 830 Elyces. Elyssa is still ahead, with 26 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Elyce against Elyssa, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Elyce Elyssa

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 81 years in which either name was published, Elyssa for 61 years and Elyce for 20 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Elyce Elyssa
Total US births 8307,272
Most in one year 28273
Babies in 2025 726
Estimated living today 7707,100
Median age today 3624
Peak year 19872004
Best rank 3,257th girls890th girls
Rank in 2025 11,932nd4,987th
First recorded 19451954
Girls / boys 830 / 07,272 / 0

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Elyces alive today are over 36; half the Elyssas are over 24. That is 12 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Elyce Elyssa
England and Wales 3423

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Elyce and Elyssa.